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All 08.0 - The Devils of Yeto
On the morning of the 8th of Tivet, Victor heard a knock at the door: Caitlyn was standing on the front step. Leading her in, he brought her upstairs, away from the sitting room where Lucca was still sleeping after his unsettling revelations from the previous night. Caitlyn began talking about Cohen, and what they could and should do in response to the threatening criminal. A few minutes later, there was another knock at the door; Victor left Virgil with Caitlyn and returned to the front hall. This time the visitor was a new face: a young Yetoman, wearing nice Asonian clothes and carrying a briefcase. He bowed and introduced himself as Ryuji Komatsu, a law graduate and part of the group in charge of the case regarding Victor's identity. He had some new information and questions regarding the case, so Victor led him in, taking him to the kitchen. Ryuji explained that the case was still ongoing, as they tried to make a sound case proving that Victor was the viscount, opposed by the lawyers of Dimitri Erzebet, who wanted to disprove the claim to gain the title and property for himself as the next in line. Unfortunately, a strange development had occurred: a woman had come to the law office yesterday and presented a will and contract, stating that Viscountess Bethany Erzebet had signed over all of her wealth and standing to Kamun Property Management in the event of her death, in exchange for a variety of ongoing goods and services while she lived. This meant that, regardless of the outcome of this case, the Kamun family had a claim to the property and would take control of the estate if the will couldn't be refuted before the paperwork finished, within the next month or so. Ryuji had been sent to see if Victor had any further information that could help the case, or if he had any insight as to why this will had been made with a Yeto organization, and why it had shown up now, months after Bethany's death. Victor fiddled about, obviously not wanting to divulge something he knew. Virgil began to cry, his yells echoing downstairs, and Victor took that as an excuse to quickly leave the room. Victor hurriedly explained the situation to Caitlyn, including the details regarding the man in Yeto and the Infernal contract translations that Lucca had been working on, and asked her what he should be telling the man waiting downstairs. Sighing, she followed him back downstairs and was introduced to Ryuji. She began to explain the demonic contract, which the law student found difficult to believe. He asked to see it, and they mentioned that it was kept by the man sleeping in the sitting room. Caitlyn left to wake Lucca, only to find that he was in a terribly foul mood. Eventually, he wandered in to join the group in the kitchen; he groused at Ryuji and Caitlyn in particular, but eventually produced the contract. He explained what he had learned about it, and its striking similarity to the contract that the Kamuns had submitted. Ryuji looked at it in minor disbelief and confusion; it was unsettling to look at, and he honestly could not determine the implications of it, as the others omitted the details regarding Victor's tattoos. The lawyer-in-training did not see how this could change much of anything, other than throwing the Kamuns under a questioning light, especially since people who could translate Infernal were few and far between. He continued to question them, however, since even he could tell that he wasn't being given the whole story. Eventually, Lucca broke it down: if he wanted more information, they would have to go get it from the Kamuns, which meant a trip to Yeto. Before he knew what was going on, Ryuji found himself agreeing to meet the three of them here tomorrow morning to set out to Hikon to see what could be learned about the Kamuns' relation to Victor and this case. Confused and unsettled, Ryuji left. Caitlyn left shortly after, practically chased out by a surly Lucca. At Victor's request, Caitlyn went to speak to Pierce regarding their expedition and the legal ramifications of bringing Ryuji; Victor went to arrange a babysitter, and Lucca spent the day wrapped up in a blanket fort. The next morning saw Ryuji arrive precisely on time at Victor's house, wearing clothes from Yeto and carrying an army pack. Victor and Lucca were already up and about, the latter in a significantly better mood; Victor had already gone and dropped Virgil off at a nanny's. Caitlyn arrived fashionably late, and after a quick breakfast, the group set out. As they approached the Lightning Transit station, they confused the newcomer by entering the employee entrance. Moments later, they found themselves in Nagaoka. Discussion turned to the fastest way to reach Hikon; Ryuji suggested horses, which would be much faster than walking, saving them hours and getting them to their destination tonight as opposed to the next day. Lucca refused, but was outvoted by the rest of the party. They made their way to a stable to rent some horses. Lucca had issues mounting his, which seemed to be rather timid of him, but Ryuji appeared to have some skill with horses and helped iron out the issues. Eventually, they were off, riding towards Hikon. The group arrived in the city well after sunset. They stabled the horses before Ryuji asked what exactly they were planning on doing. Lucca and Caitlyn agreed that they were having dinner, and turned to him to find a good place. After eating, he reiterated his question. There were only two places that there might be useful information: the offices of Kamun Property Management, and Hikon Castle, home of the Kamun family. It was quickly agreed by the three adventurers that anything relating to devils and dark deeds would definitely be kept in the personal house, and not in the much more open offices. Ryuji explained that the castle had been closed to the public for years, longer than he had been alive. He went on to describe what the castle would be like, which led to Caitlyn asking if he had been in a castle before; he replied, rather matter-of-factly, that he had been raised in one, being a member of the Komatsu family, one of the most pre-eminent families in the country. Caitlyn was somewhat impressed; Lucca was not, and wondered what he was doing in Asanon to begin with. Ryuji explained that, as part of his training to take up part of the family merchant business, he had done a wide variety of things, including service with the church, with the army, and a backpacking trip around Yeto to familiarize himself with the country. As the next step of his education, he had gone to Asanon for a law degree, in order to orient himself with Asonian customs to prepare him to eventually broker trade deals between his family and Asonian organizations. With that explained, the group crossed the city and found themselves outside the closed gates of Hikon Castle. Parked on the road a few blocks away from the gate was a ramen cart. This excited the druid, who ran in to purchase some hot noodles. This confounded Ryuji, considering that they had literally just finished eating dinner. Regardless, they quickly made a plan to enter the castle; Caitlyn stated that they could either scale the wall, or go through the door, adding as a joke that if someone had brought a shovel they could dig under. Ryuji replied quite seriously that he did have a shovel, retrieving it from his apparently magical pack when asked, mildly impressing the others. Deciding that the best way would be to invisibly scale the wall, Caitlyn used her wand of Invisibility to cloak them. Lucca used Spider Climb to scale the wall easily, bringing a rope along with him that the others used to follow. Reaching the top, they looked out over the grounds, assessing their options. While the castle was well-known to be closed and guarded, there appeared to be no outdoor lighting, and no guards visible on the walls or grounds. Ryuji did not seem to grasp the concept of silence, continually asking questions and wondering where people were, frustrating the others. Caitlyn mentioned that they should Detect for traps and things. Lucca and Caitlyn began to Detect Magic, while Ryuji started a slightly different spell. When asked what on earth he was doing, he replied, somewhat defensively, that he was detecting. When questioned further, he explained that he was using Detect Evil, which was just as useful as magic if there were foes around. No one found anything out of sort. There seemed to be lights on in the barracks and the main house; the servants' quarters and the auxiliary houses were dark. Eventually, they decided to cut across the grounds, aiming for one of the small, quiet houses. With no problems, they made their way across and to the back entrance to the building. The door was shut; a cursory Detect Magic revealed an alarm on the door, and Detect Evil found something inside. Caitlyn began the task of unlocking and disarming the door, as the others continued to make noise. Suddenly, a new voice joined their conversation: a husky, grating sort of voice replied to them, and stated that they weren't supposed to be here. Lucca immediately began to argue with it, saying that they were supposed to be there, and the owner of the voice wasn't supposed to be there. Lucca began calling him George, since he wouldn't give a name, and in response the voice replied, "I'm not George, you're George." The relentlessly irrational conversation seemed to confuse the voice, but it wasn't to be deterred from its job. Eventually, it set off the alarm of its own accord, making a sort of beeping noise. Shortly afterwards, Victor spied three people coming across the lawn towards them. Dodging inside the dark building and hiding against the wall, the group held their breath. They didn't need to wait long before the three people came in after them. They walked in a few feet before one turned around, obviously using Detect Magic. She yelled out the position of the intruders, and everything fell to chaos. The central woman, obviously a divine spellcaster, used Glitterdust, revealing Caitlyn, Lucca and Ryuji, who had all been clustered together. Victor, who had been slightly off-side, ran forward to the caster and knocked her holy symbol to the ground, dispelling his invisibility as well. The other two men began to attack Victor and Ryuji; Lucca took the form of a half-orc to gain the benefit of their darkvision, as something tried to strike him with its stinger. It was a somewhat humanoid creature, with a dumpy shape, small wings that gave it flight, and a long tail with a pointed stinger: it was an imp, and the owner of the mysterious voice they had been arguing with earlier. Caitlyn stood off to the side, bolstering her companions with her voice, while Ryuji summoned a divine light that empowered everyone further. Now exposed in the light, everyone could see their opponents clearly, and they were unsettled by the sight: all three of the Kamun guards were not quite human. They had skin with an unearthly, dark red tint, and large, curved horns framed their heads, nestled in their hair. Angered, the cleric drew a katana and faced off against Victor, while Lucca threw bolts of lightning at the man who had flanked Victor. Ryuji proved himself an able swordsman, and felled his opponent when he refused to cease fighting. Caitlyn cast a sleeping spell on the imp, who fell to the floor, snoring hideously. When the second man collapsed from Lucca's lightning, the cleric scooped up her holy symbol and held it aloft. A wave of evil energy poured from her; Victor, as well as the two fallen guards, were rejeuvenated by it, while Ryuji had to fight off a bout of illness as the darkness offended his very being. Caitlyn and Ryuji began to head to the door as the two guards got back to their feet. One of them yelled out and plunged the room into darkness, extinguishing Ryuji's light. Lucca's orcish eyes could still see, and he used that ability to throw one more bolt of lightning at the guard who had risen up behind Victor, dropping him to the floor once again. The cleric reached out for Victor, attempting to kill him with a deadly spell. He managed to stave off the worst of it, but was still badly wounded from the necromantic touch. Furious, Victor lashed out viciously, his sword ripping through the cleric. With a scream, she collapsed. Seeing that this had gone poorly, the final guard, who had plunged the room into darkness, turned and ran deeper into the building. Lucca tried to stop him with a lightning bolt, but the electricity wasn't enough to kill him, and he turned a corner and escaped. Caitlyn, who was ready to flee, informed everyone that there were more people incoming. Getting help from Lucca, Victor shoved the body of the cleric roughly into his bag of holding, and picked up the snoring imp as they prepared to leave. Casting Invisibility again, the group fled, escaping over the wall as they had entered. Agreeing to meet at the local church, the group scattered into the city. Everyone staggered into the church seperately over the next half-hour. Ryuji, knowing the city well, arrived first, and met everyone as they entered. He had a private room made ready for them, and they all congregated, tired, wounded and anxious. They pulled out the corpse of the cleric, and put down the sleeping imp, still snoring and now bound tightly with far more rope than probably necessary, and began to discuss what they had found. The cleric was an oddity: they had devil-like features, but were obviously mortal, bringing into question their heritage. Her holy symbol, upon inspection, was actually the Kamun family crest, not the symbol of any god at all. The group postulated the meaning, and figured that perhaps the family had some powerful demonic individual as their patron. Ryuji was the most distressed by far: not only had he not been expecting life-or-death combat and was upset that he had killed someone, despite the fact that his opponent was the only one who had lived, but he was appalled that the Kamun family, one of the most affluent and powerful groups in the country, was apparently worshipping devils, summoning devils, and might possibly even be devils, at least to some degree. Overwhelmed, he excused himself to go pray in private and regain some composure. With Ryuji gone, the group turned their attention to the imp. The ugly creature lay, tightly wrapped in rope, snoring. They considered for a moment that the sleeping spell would have only lasted a few moments at best, and it had been snoring contentedly for nearly an hour. Shrugging, they decided it was time to wake him up. The imp was beligerent, and became rather agitated when he learned he was in a church. Lucca, now in the guise of a Yetoman, began talking to him anyways; Victor sat, expression dour, occasionally throwing out a threatening comment, while Caitlyn watched quietly. The druid continued to call him George, which upset him; he called Lucca George in response, and eventually introduced himself as Xerxes the Mighty. Lucca tried to buy the imp's favour with sandwiches, only to learn that he had no sandwiches on him, so he sent Caitlyn out to find sandwich materials. When she returned, he proceded to bribe Xerxes with food, convincing him to read the contract out loud. He did so with some difficulty; he didn't seem to possess a keen reading ability, and the contract was complicated. Stuttering, he made his way through the papers, outlining the details. They were very close to what the group had gathered from their efforts, and the Common contract they had recently gained. The late Lady Erzebet had signed a contract, giving management responsibilities and eventual ownership of her properties to the other party. Xerxes had issues with the exact wording, saying it referred to the 'group-clan-family' of a devil named Ratik'nun. This 'group-clan-family' would, in exchange, summon and bind a devil in the form of her husband, who would remain bound until the natural death of its human body. It also mentioned that a second contract in common would be made for legal purposes. The 'group-clan-family' was obviously the Kamuns, once again drawing questions about the exact nature of the Yeto family. While Xerxes was in the middle of this, Ryuji returned, upsetting the imp who took offense to his alignment. They convinced the imp that he was fine, and Ryuji sat quietly in the corner with Caitlyn. After finishing with the contract, they convinced with more food to also read out Victor's tattoos. Caitlyn left the room as Victor took off his clothes, and the imp read out the words. It was fairly vague; the Infernal read like a looping poem of depressing prose. It wasn't particularly dissimilar from other arcane binding spells, and repeatedly mentioned the trapping and containing of power, body and mind until released in death. This more-or-less confirmed that Victor was in fact a summoned devil playing at being human. Victor dressed and Caitlyn returned; Xerxes demanded to be let free, since he had helped. The group couldn't bring themselves to harm the pathetic, off-putting creature any further, so they untied his bonds. He flew up towards the ceiling and disappeared. Sitting in the room with the corpse of the devilish cleric, the four discussed what they would do now. Fearing retribution from the Kamuns, they agreed that they had to leave town immediately. Unsure of what to do with the body, they decided to foist their problems onto Pierce, who might have some sort of backup plan, or know someone who could tell them what exactly she was. They removed her valuables: both Ryuji and Caitlyn agreed that taking anything from her was crass and immoral, while Lucca argued that it was wasteful to not take her effects, and Victor merely said that he wasn't comfortable giving all of the possessions to whomever the body would end up with. Stowing the effects and body back in the bag of holding, the four agreed that they should leave Hikon immediately. Returning to the stables, they rented horses and rode hard throughout the night. Returning to Nagaoka by the morning, the group did not hesitate, but went to the LT immediately and went to Kalleandar. Going to Pierce's office, they found the man having recently arrived. Grumpy, harried and exhausted, they poorly explaned what had happened and pulled out the body. Pierce sighed, saying that this was actually the fourth time his employees had put a corpse in his office, but he agreed that it was strange. He said that he would call Narcissus; there was almost certainly someone in Riolythe who would know what she was. Leaving the body there, the four left, teleporting to Arlington and heading to their respective houses for some much-needed rest, hoping that the Kamuns wouldn't figure out who attacked them last night. Category:Advent of the All